30 September 2009

Toronto council speaker Sandra Bussin is creating a minor radio-wave tempest after comments she made about conservative politician John Tory on his radio show last Friday.

The caller, identified only as Sandra, said the show's co-hosts were “really messed up on statistics” they were referring to regarding the sick benefits at the centre of this past summer's protracted garbage strike, and that Mr. Miller had gotten “a really good deal for the city.”

Bussin called Friday to defend the mayor and called guest host John Tory a 'three-time loser'.

As long as it doesn't involve... um, er... getting anybody in trouble...

McGuinty said he couldn't comment on what might happen next... "But certainly we would want to send a message to all our mothers and sisters and daughters that we will do everything we can to protect them."

...after they saved that big wind farm project across from the Kennedy compound... hey, wait a minute...

The Hopi Nation's Tribal Council sent a message Monday to the Sierra Club and a handful of other environmental groups: Stay off the reservation.

This spring, a coalition involving the Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust, and several Native American groups called on the Environmental Protection Agency to review the Navajo Generating Station's role in smoggy skies over the Grand Canyon.

They claimed the power plant is a source of "excessive pollution" and should be forced to reduce emissions.

The power plant and Hopi coal mines that fuel it support hundreds of families, providing more than 70 percent of the Indian nation's governmental revenues, said Scott Canty, tribal counsel.

Won't increased trade with China & India create more so called "carbon pollution"? How does the Iggster plan to mitigate that, a revival of the Dion Carbon tax?

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RELATED: The Iggy fun just never ends

Ignatieff will face evisceration on Rick Mercer Reports tonight in a spoof on his new television commercial.

With Ignatieff talking up environmental issues before a forested background, a charging grizzly bear bowls over the leader before a graphic appears declaring: "The Liberal Party of Canada: Playing dead."

...one of those "documentaries" about what a racist hellhole Canada has turned out to be... I dare you...

Hospitals were flooded with patients on Tuesday and the death toll rose through the day after presidential guard troops opened fire on 50,000 people at the main football stadium. Some of those at the rally, upset that a military officer who seized power in a December coup might run for president in January elections, had chanted: "We want true democracy."

Then Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara's presidential guard opened fire with live ammunition, scattering panicked demonstrators who left scores of dead behind. Opposition politician Mutarr Diallo said he witnessed soldiers raping women with rifle butts. Camara, the coup leader who was not present at the stadium, said the violence was beyond his control.

Since winning independence half a century ago from France, Guinea has been pillaged by its ruling elite. Its 10 million people are among the world's poorest, even though its soil has diamonds, gold, iron and half the world's reserves of the raw material used to make aluminum.

It was a stark reversal for Mr. Gaya – whom activists once portrayed as a wrongly accused victim of “Islamophobia” – and the latest in a series of admissions from young extremists rounded up by RCMP-led police in June, 2006.

Mr. Gaya, now 21, is likely in line for a sentence nominally in the neighbourhood of 14 years – but could be paroled in a year or two. This is due to the counterintuitive calculus of Canada's correctional system.

The time-consuming pretrial legal battles so far, coupled with Canada's customary two-for-one credit for “dead time” in jail, means most remaining suspects have already served the equivalent of a seven-year penitentiary term.

Yeah... like I could give a crap about them... or that whatsisname... Codliver guy...

“I married the right woman. That has turned out to be the most important single fact. I'm not going to die out there if people don't like me because there's someone at home who thinks I'm okay."

"I can't put it more directly than that.”

Yup, that's pretty, er... direct.

Maybe we should send his first wife... and his two strangely invisible kids... some "just visiting" t-shirts.

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RELATED: Yeah, sure... he's a family guy

"We went for a walk, and he said, 'I want to make one thing absolutely clear to you. When we're at Aunt Helen's house or Aunt Charity's house [Charity Grant, their mother's sister], you can say whatever you want to me."

"But if you ever see me on the school grounds, you're not to talk to me. You're not to recognizethat I'm your brother."

28 September 2009

The government says Suaad Hagi Mohamud gave wrong answers and contradictory information in three separate interviews with Canadian officials in Kenya last May, according to court documents filed in Federal Court.

The documents were filed in response to a motion for costs by Mohamud's lawyer Raoul Boulakia.

The Canadian High Commission officer who conducted the interviews said Mohamud looked different from her passport photo, that she was six or seven centimetres shorter than her driver's licence stated and that her signature wasn't the same.

If the consortium of TV networks doesn't include Green Party Leader Elizabeth May in the highly-publicized TV leaders' debates in the next election campaign, she says she will call on Canadians to put help reverse the move and is also threatening legal action.

Denis Coderre is expected to step down Monday as Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant, CTV News has learned, over a disagreement about the political comeback of one of the Quebec MP's main rivals.

Coderre will hold a news conference Monday at 11 a.m. in Montreal North where it is expected that he will announce his decision, CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife told Canada AM.

To announce the news conference, Coderre issued a press release Monday that for the first in months did not include the title, "Michael Ignatieff's Quebec lieutenant."

My guess is, this is merely the first of the Fiberal rats... to abandon the sinking ship.

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FROM THE COMMENTS: The compassionate, intellectual left responds...

"Stephen Harper will rule the land for all eternity. One day very soon, all the brown trolls will be banished to far off lands and white men like us shall stroll the streets as conquering heroes."

With polls showing the Conservatives 7 to 8 percentage points ahead of the Liberals, the Tories may want an election now, as it would be within striking distance of winning a majority of seats in Parliament.

Before the Liberals decided to withdraw their support from the government, the two parties had been tied in the polls.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"The Conservatives should have a bunch of MPs 'get the flu' the day Iggy puts his NC motion forward. Call his freaking bluff and get this over with."

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UPDATE: Let the games begin

"Even without seeing today's update, Goodale said, Liberals have already decided that the government deserves defeat."

"I want her to be happy," he said of Vilakazi. "I think getting married to her for the second time would make her happy since I will be taking in three other wives so this will relieve her in some way."

"Canadians see Harper as better suited than Ignatieff to tackle the economy (33 per cent to 23 per cent), health care (23 to 16) and crime (38 to 12). The Liberal leader is more trusted by Canadians than Harper on the foreign affairs file (30 per cent to 28 per cent) but, said Shanoff, "that's not a substantive policy area that we stay up at night thinking about."

"It's the economy, it's health care, it's other things that we think Stephen Harper is doing a decent job with."

"The poll found that 27 per cent of Canadians favoured Harper as prime minister, compared to 16 per cent for Ignatieff and 12 per cent for NDP Leader Jack Layton."

Police say a man and woman were approached as they entered an apartment building by a man who exchanged words them before pulling out a pistol and shooting the man, who was sent to hospital with a gunshot wound.

Investigators say Oliha was a victim in a shooting in Toronto at the beginning of September and suffered a relatively minor gunshot wound to his right arm.

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RELATED: Shots fired in sleepy suburbia

A 50-year-old man was shot in the foot Friday night after witnessing a break-and-enter at his next-door neighbour's home in the Don Mills area.

The victim was standing outside his home near Lawrence Ave. E. and Leslie St. around 10 p.m. when he heard his neighbours call for help.

25 September 2009

My own sense is that he'll make a seriously bad candidate, due to what I'd call his narcissism. This isn't so much about adoring yourself, as being so self-absorbed that your sense of how others react to you goes missing.

He told CBC Radio's Eleanor Wachtel that politics is “the most incredible adventure of all the adventures I've had in my life. … It's been unforgettable no matter how it turns out.”

But for people in the country, how it turns out is what counts; he can save all the savouring for his next memoir.

“What is it that a great politician knows?” he asked Adam Gopnik. “I'm trying to learn that.”

You might expect him to have had a clue before running to be PM, but at least he's asking.

"While I’m sure all the granola eaters are gently patting themselves on the back for being so nice to the homeless for one day, let’s see how Moonbeam and Rainbow Chakra react when the urine people start camping out on their stoop for the next three years."

Until today, Mr. Miller had no sign that he would drop out of the mayoral contest. He kept up a busy round of appointments and talked up the successes of his administration when asked about possible challengers.

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

"As a farewell gift, can we organize a fund to give Mr. Miller a free membership to a gun club (any gun club) just outside of Toronto?"

-- OTTAWA -- The fierce squabble over Martin Cauchon's political comeback is symptomatic of a party that has lost sight of the most basic tenets of democracy, says a former national director of the Liberal party.

"We've turned into one big appointment society," Sheila Gervais told The Canadian Press. She pointed out that Ignatieff himself was not elected as leader. He was installed without a contest last December at the behest of party brass and Liberal MPs.

Most of those MPs, Gervais said, have been appointed themselves or protected for years from having to face democratic nomination challenges.

"What the heck a polling firm is doing with information about names, addresses and phone numbers of people who own firearms in this country so they can contact them for a poll is beyond me," said Greg Farrant of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters.

"It sure isn't public safety."

Police say the polling was not a violation of privacy because Ekos was working as an extension of the RCMP.

"I had fun….But ooooh the irony. Everyone I talked to was like, “man, this is the most bizarre combination. I bet Michael Moore would freak out if he saw that this was happening.”….And then he showed up."

-- LONDON, Ont. -- It's up to London hospital boards -- not the province -- to deal with millions of dollars in contracts awarded without tender, Premier Dalton McGuinty said as the London contracting scandal erupted in the Ontario legislature yesterday.

A similar, but larger scandal is raging over $16 million in untendered contracts awarded by eHealth Ontario, a provincial government agency.

You beat a homeless septuagenarian to death... in a cemetery... you think people might be a little more concerned...

Merhawi Tekle is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of 71-year-old Donald Constantine Jackson. He appeared in court Wednesday morning and has been remanded to custody, said Detective Mike Barsky.

Mr. Jackson, who police had previously identified incorrectly as 61-year-old Benson Smith, was living in the Scarborough Hope Centres shelter when he was killed.

Funny how, some armed gangbanger gets shot by cops... the media goes into a prolonged feeding frenzy... but, this guy... no big deal.

...on whether Toronto will be implementing a tit-for-tat program in response to Aboriginal initiative...

The Elsipogtog First Nation is cracking down on crime in the eastern New Brunswick community by fingerprinting any non-aboriginal people looking to move onto the reserve.

The unusual (***some might say, unconstitutional -- emphasis mine***) steps are being followed as the First Nations community struggles to bring down its crime rate, which is 10 times higher than in neighbouring communities.

Thank goodness this awful problem has finally been resolved. Hopefully, this enlightened policy will also take care of all those other "statistical anomalies" down on the rez...

"The average death rate on reserves for the decade ending in 2002 was more than seven times the national average."

The poll suggests two-thirds of Canadians are still nervous about economic recovery and favour continued stimulus spending. But when they were asked which of the party leaders they would trust to manage the economy, 40.5% said Mr. Harper, against 26.8% who said Mr. Ignatieff and 10.1% who opted for Jack Layton, the NDP leader.

On Saturday Russian deputy defence minister Vladimir Popovkin said in an interview that "naturally we will scrap the measures that Russia planned to take" in response to the shield and specifically named Iskander deployment as one of them.

When asked about the matter today, the chief of Russia's general staff, Nikolai Makarov, said: "There has been no such decision. It should be a political decision. It should be made by the President."

21 September 2009

This gave homeowner Robert E. Thompson, 91, time to jump out of bed, grab his gun, a .38-caliber revolver loaded with hollow-point bullets, and to phone the police.

"The funny part was I didn't have any clothes on," said Thompson, a World War II veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart during combat tours in Europe. "I was standing out there with a .38 in my hand, and I was stark naked."

"I fired a warning shot," he said, and the burglar froze. "I wasn't going to let the guy get within six or eight feet of me. He spoke only Spanish, and I couldn't understand anything he was saying. I think he was more scared than I was, really."

..." -- September 21, 2009 at 6:30 am -- Mr. 'defamation for mebut not for thee' Baglow should consider what wheels he may set in motion. Who knows?"

"Plus, I could use a new truck."

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FROM RAPHAEL'S COMMENTS:

"Being a former English major, I suppose I'm more than a little bit jealous that someone could parlay a doctorate in modernist Scottish poetry into a career path sufficient to keep someone from starving."

20 September 2009

Michael Ignatieff turned up the heat on New Democrats Sunday, declaring they'll soon have to make a choice whether they truly believe or not in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government.

Looks like Jack Layton terrier isn't goin' down without a fight...

“Instead of playing games, Mr. Ignatieff should look at his record.”

“He propped up Stephen Harper for 79 confidence votes in a row and got nothing in return. The NDP is making Parliament work, trying to get a billion dollars to help the unemployed.”

Oh well... back to obedience training.

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RELATED: The bloom is off the biscuit

"It's not enough to say, 'That in good times we're going to bring forward the progress...'"

"If he goes into an election and doesn't really have anything substantive to put on the table, we're looking at a massacre."

In the span of about one year, the 15-year-old, named Sitara, has been yanked out of school, off a path that hinted at promise, and sold by her father for 700,000 Afghanis (about $15,000) into a marriage that, already, she has “nothing left for.”

Meet the women that Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton are willing to forget about... then tell me all about the compassionate, intellectual left.

A homeless man savagely beaten in a Scarborough cemetery died in hospital today after clinging to life for almost a week before dying today.

The aggravated assault investigation has now become the city's latest homicide investigation.

Toronto Police are hunting for the couple that ambushed George "Benson" Smith, 61, last Saturday night and released two security camera shots of the duo yesterday. Const. Tony Vella said the man got in an argument with a woman at the Kennedy Rd. subway station.

She accused the man of stealing something from her, he denied it and went on his way.

In a given year, estimates Patricia Selinger, the school's registrar, there might be as many as several dozen students from First Nations as far away as B.C. and the Maritimes, not an insignificant number for a school of roughly 300, offering little by way of native culture, deeply imbued with Catholic values -- Sunday Mass is mandatory -- and charging tuition running $17,000 a year for in-province students and nearly $24,000 for those outside.

"I'm sure every main leader from all the main bands has sent their kids here. We've had the Fontaines, the Bellegardes, the Sandersons, the Montours and Hills from the Six Nations, the Ahenakews, the Goodstrikers from Alberta," says Terry O'Malley, the school's former president who taught there since 1978.

Gerard Kennedy's bill would allow foreign military deserters – or those who refuse mandatory military service – to stay in Canada if their action is based on "sincere moral, political or religious objection."

The Liberal Leader accused the government of being insensitive, saying its message is simple: “We expect aboriginal Canadians to die.”

So some civil servant in the Ministry of Health... likely following some protocol conjured up at a weekend conference on Disaster Planning... ships this stuff out... and suddenly we're talkin' Treblinka?

And hey... don't you nasty evil Neocons be trottin' out any of those pesky numbers to confuse the situation.

C'mon Iggy... make up your mind. Are the Conservatives doing too much... or not enough? 'Cos it seems you change your mind every couple of days.

Or are you just lookin' to change the channel on all those polls?

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FROM THE COMMENTS:

prep·a·ra·tion* Pronunciation: \ˌpre-pə-ˈrā-shən\* Function: noun

1 : the action or process of making something ready for use or service or of getting ready for some occasion, test, or duty2 : a state of being prepared : readiness3 : a preparatory act or measure

President Obama says he will not be there because of the health care debate in Washington. Instead, he is sending Chicago-native, first lady Michelle Obama to Denmark.

Mr. Obama said he is sending - in his words - a "more compelling superstar" to make America's case in Copenhagen.

The first lady offered a preview, talking about the city where she was born and raised. "What makes Chicago such a great host is its people! It is truly the people! Nobody loves sports like the people of Chicago."

"The McGuinty government ... has an instinct to duck behind any convenient political shield it can find and is willing to put anyone's head on a stick as long as it's not their own," PC Leader Tim Hudak said.

Premier Dalton McGuinty "SAID" his government has increased access to FOI by broadening it to include Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation but did not deny the allegation the expense report was held back.

I know the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT isn't as sexy as hearing about an ex-Conservative MP's substance abuse problem, or some dumbass civil servant sending out body bags to an aboriginal reserve... but ask yourself... in the bigger picture, what's the more important issue here.

16 September 2009

"How can the national news media ignore the many allegations of corruption at ACORN, which gets millions of dollars in federal funding, and allow a couple of independents with $3,000 and a bad wardrobe scoop them on the undercover story of the year?"

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees "indefensible," has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.

Videos of ACORN workers giving tax advice to people posing as prostitutes and other revelations have led to growing criticism of the organization in recent days.

ACORN has been targeted for years by conservative groups that consider it a sometimes unsavory arm of Democratic electoral politics. The Senate voted earlier this week to deny funding to the organization to help with the next census.

"It is not very often that one gets to witness a "leadership frontrunner" immolate his own candidacy so blithely, so recklessly, but if you click here and you peer inside, you will see the corpse of Michael Ignatieff’s vaulting ambition."

-- BALTIMORE -- Baltimore police say a Johns Hopkins University medical student armed with a samurai sword killed an intruder in his garage.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says campus police and an off-duty city officer responding to a call for a suspicious person heard screams to call police around 1:20 a.m. Tuesday.

Guglielmi says the student told the man he found in his garage to leave and the man accosted him. That’s when Guglielmi says the student defended himself, cutting off the man’s hand and causing a severe laceration to his upper body.

First enacted in Florida in 2005, "Stand Your Ground" bills are now being considered in 21 states including Georgia, according to the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The South Dakota senate approved one just last week.

O'Keefe and Giles were garishly dressed as a stereotypical pimp and prostitute. O'Keefe was decked out in excessively snazzy flesh-peddler couture, and Giles, going by the name "Eden," wore almost nothing.

The ACORN workers were not the slightest bit judgmental or put off by the request for help in getting financing for a brothel.

The Brooklyn DA's office announced today it would be investigating the group.

14 September 2009

Hon. Bob Rae: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Prime Minister a very simple question. Does the government plan to launch a significant defence of the Canadian system in light of the attack that is being made on it in the United States of America?

Right Hon. Stephen Harper: Mr. Speaker, we intend to let the United States make its own decisions on domestic debates.I will say that the Canadian health care system will not only survive attacks by right-wing commentators in the United States but will even survive one by left-wing incompetents in Ontario.

Mr. McGuinty unveiled the new measures on Monday morning, an hour before the fall session begins in the legislature. His government is expected to be on the defensive following spending scandals at eHealth Ontario and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.

Mr. McGuinty denied that he is attempting to distract attention from what is expected to be a lively Question Period today. But he also conceded that his government has been caught off guard by the spending scandals uncovered by the Tories.